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Online media firm Blueye, which started out as design agency in 2005, has some big plans over the next six months: they are planning a site relaunch, a funding round and a hiring spree of 10 to 20 people. This spurt of energy comes on the tail-end of a merger with another Chicago-based, female-founded agency Convometrics in early August.
All these quick moves are a result of Blueye stepping into a new space: the world of ad tech. Blueye recently launched its ad platform, Blueye Hub, that mashes up Facebook, CRM and loyalty data to auto-generate ads, target the right audiences and then accurately monitor ad performances. Blueye also leverages Facebook’s Open Graph to access information on individual users: this data collection piece of helps to propel the Hub product beyond its competitors by targeting users based on the most specific characteristics.
“We came from a design and dev agency into the ad tech world,” founder and CEO Shannon Smith said. “It’s different to go from a service-based company to a self-service platform model. We’ve even gone through phases of considering splitting into companies.”
But Blueye is rooting itself as a unified tech and service company, with a large platform team whose priority is to get instrumental feedback from customers: “It’s all of us jumping in and communicating with users. Because the platform is so new, we get the opportunity to talk with every single customer,” Smith said.
By listening to customer feedback, like one customer’s desire for a real-time bidding product, Blueye is constantly expanding its tech offerings. Right now, Blueye is partnering with Chicago-based online ad and media management software company Centro to white-label a bidding tool. The prototype will be launched this month, Smith said.
Along with this launch, Blueye will be starting a PR blitz this month that aligns perfectly with its site re-launch and hiring campaign to double its team size. In the meantime, Smith and her team are looking forward to working with mentors and beta testers in the ad tech community: “We love candid feedback,” she said.
